Took Husband to Cardiologist Today.

My husband had to go see a cardiologist for the first time today. He has a heart murmur. We don't know way. It just showed up a month ago on his checkup. The doctor heard it on both sides of his heart. Husband had a cholesterol panel done again today (they did this a month ago too), and had a holter monitor put on for 48 hours. He has to have an echocardiogram (ultrasound of his heart) done a week from Wednesday.

Sometime after the echocardiogram is done, the Cardiologist will call with test results. If all is well, they will see Hubby in 6 months.

I was glad I went to the appointment. I kept some things straight, and let the doctors know about Hubby's caffeine intake. Apparently 6 18 oz cups of coffee/soda/energy drinks are not a good idea if you consume them in one day. The recommendation is 4 normal size cups of coffee per day with at least 4 hours between them. I am going to mix his coffee with decaf coffee. I am also going to buy caffeine free diet soda for him. He can just cope with it. Then what he drinks at work will keep him to a normal amount of caffeine.

The good things - Hubby has NO symptoms! He is in very good physical shape, especially for someone who works a desk job.

I am still worried about him. He just wants to ignore this. I won't let him do that. He is still my best friend.

Hopefully all results will go well. The caffeine intake does sound like a big red flag.

I think that exercise is so important for us as we ease into our 50's and 60's and older of course. I started power walking in 2017 every day at lunch with a lady in my building and still do it and it helps me feel better about being at a desk job and not moving much. It has helped me keep my weight down and I just feel better.

I have to almost force my husband to walk on the weekends since it's cold in Chicago right now. He is in sales so is in a car a lot i.e. on his butt!

We are moving to a warmer climate this summer so we plan to be much more active most of the year which will help. I really am addicted to my power walking now and want to add more exercises to my routine.

Like I told him, what good does it do for me to be healthy if he is not? We also are BFF's and I want to spend my time with him long term!

The day after my father died my hub had bad chest pains and we went to immediate Care. We Doctor was concerned so we drove home and missed my dad's funeral, and hub spent that night with heart rate of 200 in hospital. He was hooked up to a monitor and this is where we spent the night before my dad's funeral and the day after my father died. Jewish funerals are done right after they die so....we could not go back and attend when hub was released. What a nightmare. He was on a 24 hour monitor when he got out.

Hub had afib and has been fine since, but that was scary and the timing could not have been worse. Nothing ever turns out well for me when it comes to family of origin! I was so depressed all I did was cry. I had to choose my sick husband or the funeral.

I don't think funerals are that important since I believe our soul has already left our body and our spirit moves on so I chose my still alive husband. But the heart problem plus father's death just did me in. Hub was under pressure too and we think that's why the afib happened. It was a horrible time.

My hub and I are very active and exercise a lot, don't smoke, etc. If my hub had been in worse shape, who knows what would have happened? Anyway hubby is doing well. He was put on a blood thinner.

Thanks, all. He is actually in great shape. Periodically his doctors have done stress tests over the years to have a base line just in case. Each time, as soon as he is warmed up, his heart rate goes down and the doctor doing the testing wonders why he is there. The first time was back when Wiz was little. I think that is why this caught me so off guard.

I am usually the one dealing with health stuff and hubby has ALWAYS been healthy. It helps that he lost about 40 pounds in a supervised weight loss study that took it off in a very healthy way over six months. He kept more than half of it off for another six months. So maybe the caffeine will be enough. At least he isn't doing those 5 hour energy things any longer. I hate those things for him.

I have a funny cautionary tale about this. Years ago doctor felt he heard something in my heart and did an echocardiogram. I caught a glimpse of his notes which said r / o mitral prolapse. So instead of just waiting to see what my results were i went online and looked up mitral prolapse and got myself int a panic. I could not find what r / o meant. Turns out it was rule out. I felt like an idiot. Don't try to out guess the doctor. I was apparently like your husband too much caffeine

So far the only thing we have googled was "what to ask cardiologist about adult heart murmur". The doctor seems very thorough and covered everything before we even needed to ask about anything I had questions written down for. That was good.

Well, the murmur could be any number of things, even just a functional murmur under stress, which is harmless.

Interestingly, my mother, from whom I got my habit of drinking several (coffee-equivalent) cups of strong, English black tea per day (and gave up as it was involved in the migraine process and my anxiety) developed tachycardia and an arrythmia.

She already has horribly high blood pressure, despite diet and medications. Off to the cardiologist she was sent by a frantic GP.

The cardiologist was also frantic. During the long workup, mum cut way back and switched gradually over to decaf tea.

By the end of the 4 months of testing, her heart rate had returned to normal, and the arrythmia was gone!

Cardiologist, who was flummoxed, finally asked her if she'd done something, and she said, "Not really, doctor, I just switched to mostly decaf tea."

She then had to explain to him the difference between the way English of Russian/Lithuanian extraction drink tea and the way the rest of the world drink tea. Once he realized she had been effectively drinking 6-8 cups of coffee per day, the light bulb went on.

So, cutting out caffeine may indeed help his heart a lot, especially if there are issues with rate and rhythm. Murmurs are more often mechanical in nature, but many are innocuous.

Just remember, if you cut caffeine, do it very gradually, withdrawal headaches rival migraines in severity and there are other unpleasant withdrawal effects as well, both psychological and physical.

Keep us posted on how hubs is doing. I hope his murmur turns out be an "artifact" (medicalese for "one of those weird things") and that all is well with him.

Thanks. I will keep you updated. Right now we are just waiting for tests to happen and results to come back. He feels fine other than a little stressed.

He has next week to relax though! It is Spring Break for the University and the School System. Our youngest is going on a school trip to Disney. The University is cutting off the power to his building except for one room. Since the sprinkler system will be off, no one can be in the building. He gets a paid vacation without taking any vacation days! Woo Hoo!! He is excited!! Plus there is some sportsball tournament he is all excited to work at (his other job is working at the sportsball events. He gets to know most of the football, basketball, soccer and other sportsball players and even some of the big name fans as he works the doors, the coaches areas, and all kinds of things. That is what he does for "fun", lol!)

He is willing to cut back on the caffeine and has started to do it gradually. He wanted to just stop it cold turkey. He has done that before. I told him that if his heart was stressed, it would not handle that stress well. He needed to do it gradually because our kids did NOT need to go through him having a heart attack. That convinced him to do it gradually. We both agreed years ago that if it was in our power, we would put the kids through as little trauma as possible, especially health related. Even when they became adults.

I know what you mean. My mother and I were talking about family health issues and the issue of fertility problems in women on my mother's side of the family came up.

My mother asked me how old I was when husband and I started trying to start a family. I said '24' and she said, 'Wow. Your kids would've been in their 30's. You'd likely be a grand mother by now." (Unspoken: "and me a great-grandmother")

Bit of a jolt. I mean, I am pushing sixty, but...

Seriously, cutting back on caffeine gradually is the only way to do it. I don't know about cardiac risks from quitting cold turkey, but the headaches alone, ugh! There's a reason most headache medications have caffeine in them.

Keep us posted on how things go. Hopefully things will be sorted in time to enjoy late spring and summer.